1. Field of the Invention
The instant invention relates to an apparatus and method for providing different images or sequences of images exclusively to respective ones of multiple viewers of a single monitor.
More particularly, the instant invention provides an apparatus and method to display one of a number of views of a computer simulation, video game, television program, or movie exclusively to a particular one of a number of viewers of a single monitor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior art computer simulations and video games fall into two categories by which multiple views are displayed to respective viewers.
The output of the first type of prior art system, which shall be referred to as a "split-screen" system, is shown in FIG. 1. In this split-screen system, a single monitor 1 is utilized to concurrently display a view seen by a first viewer and a view seen by a second viewer.
As seen in this Figure, in which a race game is shown, the screen of the monitor is divided in half and the first viewer's view (player 1's view) is shown in the top half, for example, and the second viewer's view (player 2's view) is shown in the bottom half, for example.
This prior art split-screen system suffers many disadvantages, however. To begin with, both viewers can see both halves of the screen. That is, the first viewer can see not only his view but also the second viewer's view. Likewise, the second viewer can see not only his view, but also the first viewer's view. This situation is clearly distracting to both viewers. Further, where the computer simulation or video game requires that the first viewer's view not be seen by the second viewer and that the second viewer's view not be seen by the first viewer, this type of system is clearly unacceptable.
Moreover, this split-screen system suffers from the disadvantage that the available display area for the first viewer's view is only half of the monitor screen area and the available display area for the second viewer's view is only half of the monitor screen area.
The output of the second type of prior art system, which shall be referred to as the "multiple monitor system", is shown in FIG. 2. As seen in this Fig., in which a tank combat simulation is shown, a first viewer is provided a monitor 21, on which a first view is shown and a second viewer is provided a monitor 23, on which a second view is shown. The monitors may be placed so that the first viewer can not see the second view on monitor 23 and so that the second viewer can not see the first view on monitor 21. For example, there may be a curtain 25 between the monitors 21 and 23 or the monitors may be in different rooms.
Since two monitors are required in this multiple monitor system, the system is relatively expensive and its use is generally limited to high-end systems, such as military training simulations. A derivation of this multiple monitor system (hereinafter "multiple head-mounted display system") employs individual head-mounted displays (usually in the form of LCD display screens) for each viewer. However, this derivation likewise suffers from the same disadvantages of the multiple monitor system described above, namely, since two head-mounted displays, each requiring the use of one or more active LCD display screens, are required, the system is relatively expensive. Moreover, conventional head-mounted display systems generally can not provide the resolution provided by stand-alone monitors.